Sometimes, you read a book that you get so involved in, you wind up taking it to work, reading it during lunch, and emerge 2 hours later at the end just because you lost track of time and wanted to see it through to the end.

One of those books is Little Girls, by Ronald Malfi.

Now, full disclosure, I am friends with Malfi. I’ve have known him ever since I began going to HorrorFind (when it still existed) back on the East Coast. The first time I had met him, he was standing outside the hotel bar, just chatting with a group of folks I knew. He was a nice enough guy, and we talked a bit about his work. At that point, I had never read anything by him before, but he had a reading the next day that I attended to see what all the fuss was about.

From the second he started reading, I was hooked. Shortly after, I bought one of his books. And then another. And another. Another. Another.

Basically, I was a reader for life.

Ronald Malfi

But just because we’ve consumed copious amounts of alcohol together, and even engaged in a foot race or two, don’t think that I let that cloud my judgement when it comes to his writing. I read a lot of books, and I have no qualms about telling you when I dislike something. But I can say, without hesitation, that Ronald Malfi is one of the greatest working writers of our generation.

Little Girls was a slow build, but well worth the time. The story is about Laurie, who returns to her childhood home after her father has committed suicide due to his dementia, only to be haunted by her past. Is she really hearing someone in the house? Is her daughter’s new playmate actually the reincarnation of the evil little girl, who died next door, from her youth? Or is it all in her head?

I don’t want to say that ghost stories are Malfi’s specialty, because I don’t want to pigeon-hole him into a single genre, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t good at it. But the ghosts, real or imagined or only the beginning of this story. Somewhere, a little more than two thirds into the book, the story takes a hard left turn into really messed up territory, and totally changes the dynamic he gets you used to. The darker side of human nature, and the secrets Laurie finds hidden within the walls of her childhood home, open the door for something even more terrifying.

And I wasn’t joking about Malfi being a fantastic writer. He wields the pen better than most contemporary authors, using the page as a canvas, and making the world come alive on the page. Not overly flowery writing, mind you, but he injects more description into a single sentence than most people can do in a paragraph. It’s a skill he’s had for years, but you can tell how much he has refined it with Little Girls.

Malfi has a way, with all his books, of creating these fully realized and fleshed out characters right out of the gate, and Little Girls is no exception. Laurie, along with her husband, Ted, and daughter, Susan, leap off the page, and really feel like people you have in your own life.

“As with any characters, there’s pieces of real people in there, but for the most part, they’re their own creations,” said Malfi when asked about this. I had one daughter while I was writing this book and now have another, so parenting young girls was on the forefront of my mind.”

And speaking of characters, there is no finer villain, if you can call her that, than 10 year old Abigail. Children in horror novels have always been unnerving, but Malfi seems to take Abigail to the next level. Despite her age and small stature, she’s a viable threat to the Genarro family, and keeps Laurie on her toes. She is so perfectly sweet…and evil, at the same time.

I also asked Malfi what it is about little girls that make them so perfect for an antagonist role.

“I suppose it’s their inherent innocence that, when twisted into something dark, is unnerving,” he replied. “When adults behave strangely or even with evil intent, they’re still adults and you expect them to attest to their actions, to give reason and cause for their malicious behavior. We don’t have that same expectation of children—it’s part of a child’s job to keep one foot in fantasy land, after all—and so the ‘horror’ aspect is kept in relative darkness and obscurity. To me, that’s more frightening than having an explanation for some evil.”

While I mentioned earlier that the story is a slow build, don’t let that deter you. While not an action-packed book from beginning to end, I found the lulls (if you can even call them that) to be the perfect “quiet before the storm” moments before we get gut punched again by the tension and reveals as the story unfolded. Every word and every situation means something to the overall story. There is nothing out of place here; it’s all deliberate. And that’s one of the many reasons I love Malfi’s writing.

Basically, to paraphrase Oingo Boingo, I love Little Girls. It’s the perfect ghost story, with just the right amount of psychological thriller added in for good measure. I enjoyed unraveling the mystery along with Laurie, and Malfi continues to prove he is deserving of all the praise he gets.

Do yourself a favor, and pick this one up. You won’t be disappointed.

Little Girls is available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and where ever books are sold.

Note: I was given an ARC of Little Girls by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.